Uvita to Corcovado
Ok, so after being dropped off at the road to Uvita, which was out of town where the bus picked up, (a different bus went south from Uvita) after about 45 minutes we got on. I wasn´t sure where I was going, but I figured south was a good idea. So we went south, and on the bus met a couple from Seattle and a couple from Denmark. Neither spoke much spanish, so I helped them a bit to get their bearings on the bus and where we were going, which I had figured out by then. Turned out we were all going the same place at the same time so we saw alot of each other over the next week.
The bus ride to La Palma, where we were all spending the night, was quite exhilirating. The road wouldn´t have qualified as a county road back home, was quite curvy, and the bus driver seemed to actually speed UP on curves. It was quite a ride, I spent it hanging from the handles on the bus so I´d swing with each turn. Great fun. So we got off the bus in La Palma, and were beset by taxi drivers. Now I knew that La Palma had hotels, but I couldnt´remember the name of the one I found on the internet. The other couples didn´t know where they were going, they were following me, and I had no clue. But I told them that up front, so it was their fault if they followed the blind into the ditch!
Anyway, we found a taxi driver willing to shuttle all of us to a hotel by the beach for 6$, which wasn´t bad. Although we later found that 4$ was the going price. Oh well 
Spent the night there, the next day the taxi driver took us to his house to call the ranger station about park permits. Unfortunately, the park was full until Friday (this was Monday). None of us wanted to wait, but none of us wanted to miss Corcovado. So we split up for a few days, Crystal and I going to visit our friend in Golfito, Anna and Jacob from Denmark going to enter the park from the south end, and Huck and Margaret from Seattle going to enter from the east end on Friday morning with us. We had to go to Puerto Jiminez, about 45 minutes by bus, to make reservations so I went on ahead and made reservations for the entire group. Which was… harder than it should have been. See, imagine this…
A small, dusty town, a few miles across. In the middle, there is a bank. Outside of town, on the other end, is the park office. We had to go to the park office first to get reservations. Then when that was done I had to hurry back across town to pay for the park service at the bank (you can´t pay at the park, for some reason!).
Unfortunately, when I got to the bank, I discovered that the bank required a passport to use my debit card. So I had to walk BACK to the park to get my passport. The bank of course closed at 3;30 and so I had to practically run since this was about a 2-mile round trip journey and I had 15 minutes. So I got back to the bank just in time. Then I walked all the way BACK to the park office (because, of course, once you pay, you have to get the receipt validated at the park office, across town!!) .. and the park office, was, of course, closed!
Needless to say, I was tired of walking… And thoroughly irritated at this BACKWARDS way of setting up a payment system. Anyway. Then we wanted to catch the boat to golfito. But it was leaving any minute, we were told! So we had to half walk, half run, with our packs, clear out of town another mile or so, to the jetty to catch the boat! Which, as it happened, didn´t leave for another 30 minutes. Oh well, that´s latin american for ya.
So in Golfito we were able to relax for a few days, our friend took us out to his farm, but we didn´t spent much time there… although we did get to eat young coconut for the first time. If you catch it before it gets ripe, the juice is very, very sweet and the pulp is like jelly. I think I drank/ate three coconuts there. They call them ¨pipas¨when they are young. They say it has more electrolytes than gatorade, and obviously it´s much better for you.
Later, we mentioned we wanted to try exotic fruits and everyone said ¨You HAVE to see Robert!¨ Robert is an ex-pat from Maine who has lived in Costa Rica for 50 years, and has an absolutely fabulous garden with thousands of plants over about 20 acres. We ate a Rollina for the first time, which is something like a giant cactus fruit with a custard pie inside. Seriously, it tasted like a good coconut custard pie. It was out of this world right off the tree. If you´re in that part of Costa Rica, a little ways south of Golfito, you absolutely have to see it, it was one of the highlights of our trip.
He also introduced us to velvet apples, which looked like a giant peach with rather dry, sweet flesh. The taste was rather… well, it tasted a bit like eggnog. He also cooked us some African Palm fruits, which they use to make palm oil, which is his cash crop, but they look like a large date, taste rather like a very stringy, greasy sweet potato with a huge nut inside. He then roasted the nut, which tasted like a cooked, smoked, garbanzo bean. All of it was delicious. We spent several hours there and it was delightful. He has a website at:
http://paradise-garden.tripod.com
Next day we borrowed some bikes and went for a ride about 6 miles round trip, along the beach/jungle in Golfito. Didn´t see much wildlife, but the ride was very nice. It ended on a beach called Cacao beach, but we didn´t quite go all the way. We wanted to catch the boat back to Puerto Jiminez since it was Wednesday and our friend was really busy with work at the time. Back in Jiminez I got my park permission validated, then we tried to hurry to catch the bus to La Palma. Which we were in time for, just before 4pm, but which didn´t show up until 6:10. Again, Latin America, just gotta go with the flow
The park fees and camping fees for 3 nights and 4 days for 2 people cost 100$, which was a bit steep, but ok. We wanted to stay in the hostel, but it was full, regrettably. So back in La Palma, the Seattle couple wasn´t were we had left them, which we later learned was because the campground was by an enormously loud Karaoke bar. And as we all know, karaoke is meant to be sung by, and enjoyed by, drunks.
So we drove around in the taxi looking for them for awhile, but to no avail. Someone told us they were farther down the beach, at a certain hotel, but the taxi driver refused to go there - said the roads were bad. I later learned that was a lie, and that we were caught in the middle of some sort of feud where this taxi driver and that hotel owner hated each other and the taxi driver refused to take people to their hotel. But for that night, we hit the sack and found Huck and Margaret at the hotel where we´d been told they were.
Played euchre for a few hours, during which time I took this picture which I am quite fond of…
Two scarlet macaws crossing in front of the sun. They were everywhere, eating the wild almond trees that grew by the beach. Jacob tried to open one, spent 5 minutes cutting into it, and found the tiniest nut you ever saw. It really was a letdown after all that work, but it was fun anyway 
They also had cashew trees there. Ever wonder why cashews cost so much? This is how they grow:
That is a cashew fruit. That thing on top is the cashew shell. Inside of that is a normal sized cashew. So for every handful of cashews you eat, a few dozen of these fruits have to be processed. It´s amazing they are as cheap as they are! (The fruit itself was rather green-persimmony, although it might have had uses somewhere).
Then we went kayaking for an hour or so, they were one-man kayaks for 2$ an hour each. I explored the mangroves around there in some detail. Next morning we were up early and caught this sunrise… and we´ll pick up that story next!
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Posted on February 2nd, 2009 by Natnee and filed under Costa Rica |
